I find this very interesting to think about. Your reasoning makes a lot of sense to me, and I agree that these practices would make organizations more impactful. But, being in the animal welfare space, these questions feel like fanciful thought experiments (until that Anthropic money comes in, or do we not talk about those dreams outloud?). I know you already know this, but Animal charities don’t have the resources to do rigorous testing of recruitment practices (or to offer competitive salaries). At ACE we can’t afford the time to systematically look at where rejected candidates end up or add prediction steps to the recruitment process—even though I’d really like to. I’ve seen the difference that excellence makes, but the hiring cost is already so time consuming that adding MEL would likely come at the cost of all the work necessary to retain that talent. We’re also too small to get much meaningful data from experiments.
But I could see how a centralized capacity building organization in the effective animal advocacy space could potentially play a role (Animal Advocacy Careers or maybe Sharpen Strategy or High Impact Professionals?). They could collect the data for job analyses, backtest, follow candidates, etc. across multiple organizations. That recruiter would need to thoroughly understand the theories of change for various interventions and organizations. They would also need to understand which competencies and attitudes fit those different contexts best.
Meanwhile, the charities must be willing to really engage humbly and transparently with this central recruiter and with other animal orgs. Can the EAA community look at the replaceability and counterfactual impact of the movement’s talent pool, without a competitive or scarcity mindset, and encourage their people to move so we collectively do the most good?
I would like to think about this more, but first I need to raise the money to make sure I can keep my current staff next year and hopefully provide them with COLA and maybe an extra 0.5 FTE in support. (No, not bitter about the lack of funding for animal welfare at all.)
Re: your three identified core competencies, project management is the one I would be most willing to compromise on in a recruiter, because you could potentially mitigate that skill gap with tools or admin assistance. But the ability to be a strategic sparring partner with the hiring manager seems non-negotiable. Same with a desire to test and improve hiring methods because they are determined to figure out the puzzle of getting people in places that sets the org up to do more. You need someone who questions decisions, not a go-fetch headhunter.
Anyway, I like this obsession with the meta recruiting of obsessive recruiters.
Yeah, I agree with all of this difficulty. But, I also think the animal movement trends too far in hiring too many people, and all things considered, I’d probably prefer an animal movement that was smaller and more strategic (though this is partially because I don’t think ambitious animal welfare goals, like abolishing factory farming, are tractable), and think the things that are tractable (wild animal welfare policy, shrimp welfare, etc.) would do better if coordinated by fewer talented people rather than more mass movement — but I recognize that I’m the only animal advocate in the world who is against broad movement building so don’t put too much stock in my views.
I also think the animal movement suffers from a lack of “coolness” unfortunately — e.g. I think AI risk, for example, just has more general appeal / trendiness, and so they can appeal to a way larger audience of potential applicants, which should in theory mean higher quality (just because more people are interested).
I agree that it could be centralized — I think the benefits outweigh the risks here, especially for heavily EA organizations.
I find this very interesting to think about. Your reasoning makes a lot of sense to me, and I agree that these practices would make organizations more impactful. But, being in the animal welfare space, these questions feel like fanciful thought experiments (until that Anthropic money comes in, or do we not talk about those dreams outloud?). I know you already know this, but Animal charities don’t have the resources to do rigorous testing of recruitment practices (or to offer competitive salaries). At ACE we can’t afford the time to systematically look at where rejected candidates end up or add prediction steps to the recruitment process—even though I’d really like to. I’ve seen the difference that excellence makes, but the hiring cost is already so time consuming that adding MEL would likely come at the cost of all the work necessary to retain that talent. We’re also too small to get much meaningful data from experiments.
But I could see how a centralized capacity building organization in the effective animal advocacy space could potentially play a role (Animal Advocacy Careers or maybe Sharpen Strategy or High Impact Professionals?). They could collect the data for job analyses, backtest, follow candidates, etc. across multiple organizations. That recruiter would need to thoroughly understand the theories of change for various interventions and organizations. They would also need to understand which competencies and attitudes fit those different contexts best.
Meanwhile, the charities must be willing to really engage humbly and transparently with this central recruiter and with other animal orgs. Can the EAA community look at the replaceability and counterfactual impact of the movement’s talent pool, without a competitive or scarcity mindset, and encourage their people to move so we collectively do the most good?
I would like to think about this more, but first I need to raise the money to make sure I can keep my current staff next year and hopefully provide them with COLA and maybe an extra 0.5 FTE in support. (No, not bitter about the lack of funding for animal welfare at all.)
Re: your three identified core competencies, project management is the one I would be most willing to compromise on in a recruiter, because you could potentially mitigate that skill gap with tools or admin assistance. But the ability to be a strategic sparring partner with the hiring manager seems non-negotiable. Same with a desire to test and improve hiring methods because they are determined to figure out the puzzle of getting people in places that sets the org up to do more. You need someone who questions decisions, not a go-fetch headhunter.
Anyway, I like this obsession with the meta recruiting of obsessive recruiters.
Yeah, I agree with all of this difficulty. But, I also think the animal movement trends too far in hiring too many people, and all things considered, I’d probably prefer an animal movement that was smaller and more strategic (though this is partially because I don’t think ambitious animal welfare goals, like abolishing factory farming, are tractable), and think the things that are tractable (wild animal welfare policy, shrimp welfare, etc.) would do better if coordinated by fewer talented people rather than more mass movement — but I recognize that I’m the only animal advocate in the world who is against broad movement building so don’t put too much stock in my views.
I also think the animal movement suffers from a lack of “coolness” unfortunately — e.g. I think AI risk, for example, just has more general appeal / trendiness, and so they can appeal to a way larger audience of potential applicants, which should in theory mean higher quality (just because more people are interested).
I agree that it could be centralized — I think the benefits outweigh the risks here, especially for heavily EA organizations.
One more thought: I think your points also apply to the recruitment of board members.